About the Author

Geoffrey O’Brien is the editor in chief of the Library of America and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His latest books are Early Autumn and The Fall of the House of Walworth. (September 2012). He is a widely published poet, critic, editor, and cultural historian and has been honored with a Whiting Award and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Institute for the Humanities. He lives in New York City.

Praise

Praise for Castaways of the Image Planet

“No one writes more thoughtfully, fair-mindedly and elegantly about film these days than Geoffrey O’Brien. In a lucid and understated manner, he keeps piling insight upon insight until you have to gasp at his overall brilliance, erudition and mastery of the critical enterprise.” —Philip Lopate

“Dazzlingly well-informed, he brings an intense visual analysis to movies that have generally been witnessed more superficially…The book is a must-read for anyone interested in serious thinking about mass entertainment and the wider shores of cinema.” —Molly Haskell

About the Author

Geoffrey O’Brien is the editor in chief of the Library of America and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His latest books are Early Autumn and The Fall of the House of Walworth. (September 2012). He is a widely published poet, critic, editor, and cultural historian and has been honored with a Whiting Award and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Institute for the Humanities. He lives in New York City.

Praise

Praise for Stolen Glimpses, Captive Shadows

“There is something for all movie lovers in this expertly written, often thought-provoking collection.” —Library Journal

“The author’s insights into these familiar icons are unfailingly intelligent and delivered in polished prose.” —Kirkus

Praise for Geoffrey O’Brien

“No one writes more thoughtfully, fair-mindedly and elegantly about film these days than Geoffrey O’Brien. In a lucid if understated manner, he keeps piling insight upon insight until you have to gasp as his overall brilliance, erudition and mastery of the critical enterprise.”—Phillip Lopate

“Geoffrey O’Brien displays an impressive personal scholarship that reflects both an emotional and intellectual reaction to Hollywood movies and popular culture. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in serious thinking about mass entertainment and the wider shores of cinema.“ —Molly Haskell

“One of our most astute critics, with a nearly encyclopedic, cross-genre, cross-disciplinary knowledge of both high and low culture.”—Bookforum

“O’Brien presents a series of encounters and re-encounters with movies of the past several decades, from The Cocoanuts to A.I. … A smooth after-dinner drink” —Kirkus

About the Author

Scott Phillips is the author of The Ice Harvest, The Walkaway, Cottonwood, and The Adjustment. He was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, and lived for many years in France.

Praise

Praise for Rake

“With Rake, Scott Phillips proves himself the unparalleled master of the noir anti-hero. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know, his Crandall Taylor is the quintessential American huckster on the scene, and in Phillip’s sly, deft hands we find ourselves sinking down eagerly with him, glorying in the beautiful muck.” —Megan Abbott

“Scott Phillips is an author whose books are always at the top of my reading pile. His smart prose and conscience-deprived anti-heroes turn crime fiction into social satire. His latest, Rake, further proves his talent for making noir funny…With Rake, Phillips has once again created a protagonist whose voice suits his writing style. You might dislike him, if he wasn’t so cavalier and intelligent. While he gives us wild justification for his actions there exists a little hypocrisy in him, at least when he tells his tale. It’s also hard to admit we’d behave differently if we could get away with it. One could say that Scott Phillips gives us a cold look at his characters, and the film business, but the narration and the protagonist’s devil-may-care attitude give Rake a sleazy warmth. Rake is Scott Phillips at his most entertaining. His wonderfully amoral and hedonistic characters, with their scheming and trouble shooting, provide a subtle yet laughable loud look at how the US has exported its worst traits abroad.” —Mystery People

“The first scene in Rake is a fight. It’s not surprising that a Scott Phillips book opens with violence; he’s known for exploring the baser side of humanity with dark humor and noirish style…Rake makes no bones about its main character being a bad guy. But bad guys can make for good reads, and this one does.” —The Wichita Eagle

Praise for The Adjustment

“This is Wayne’s story, and what makes it memorable is his hulking presence, drifting through the world as hungry and blank-eyed as a shark . . . There’s something compelling about that sort of rage, about its compression, its control . . . But what draws us to the book is Phillips’ taut and vicious vision, so clean we cannot help but inhabit it, even when we find ourselves repelled.” —The Los Angeles Times

“Written in pitch-perfect noir form.” —Library Journal

“Sly and worthy . . . Crime fans, especially those who favor a vivid sense of place and time, will love it.” —Booklist

“The author’s unapologetic depiction of a thoroughly bad egg will appeal to hard-boiled fans who don’t need redeeming features to become engaged with a character.” —Publishers Weekly

“Wayne Ogden is a prince of a fellow, as long as you judge this bad-boy protagonist of Scott Phillips’s caustic crime novel . . . according to his own perverse code of ethics.” —New York Times Book Review

“Phillips’ novel is a brilliant work of noir, narrated in an Ogden deadpan that at times pokes the ghost of Raymond Chandler. Phillips’ place of residence qualifies The Adjustment for this ‘Best of St. Louis’ honor, but regardless of where he chose to hang his hat, his book would rank among the best published this year.” —The Riverfront Times, Best Book by a Local Author

“…as good, if not better, than The Ice Harvest . . . Like Jim Thompson with Lou Ford, Scott Phillips successfully manipulates the reader via Wayne Ogden. He forces you to stop on the side of the road, to look at the crash, and then to get out of your car to inspect every tiny details of this twisted wreckage of a man. The Adjustment is hardboiled, hardcore, and hard to put down.” —crimefictionlover.com

“Playing fast and loose with the dark side of the Greatest Generation, Scott Phillips once again creates a tight, funny noir that’s rich in character, and makes the profane sacred.” —from Indiebound’s Next Great Reads selection

“Like all Phillips novels, you never know where The Adjustment is going and the storytelling is nothing less than completely compelling… [this is] the best novel that I’ve read all year.” —Spinetingler Magazine

Praise for Scott Phillips

“Scott Phillips is dark, dangerous and important . . . crime fiction at its best.” —Michael Connelly

“A fearless, ambitious writer who never makes a false move.” —George Pelecanos

“I simply can’t wait to see what Scott Phillips will do next.” —Richard Russo

About the Author

Sarah Wise studied at Birkbeck College at the University of London. Her most recent book, The Blackest Streets was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize (2009) and her first book, The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in London was shortlisted for the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Crime Writer’s Gold Dagger for nonfiction. She lives in London.

Praise

Praise for Inconvenient People

“Wise’s meticulously researched study adds a fresh perspective to current scholarship on insanity and offers a chilling reminder of ‘the stubborn unchangeability of many aspects of the lunacy issue.’” —Publishers Weekly

Praise for the UK edition of Inconvenient People

“I enjoyed Inconvenient People…it is an illuminating look at an area of social history that inspired Wilkie Collins among others.” —Sebastian Faulks, Telegraph, Christmas 2012 Books of the Year

“Wise is a terrific researcher and storyteller. Here she has woven a series of case studies into a fascinating history of insanity in the 19th century.” —Kate Summerscale, Guardian, Books of the Year 2012

“I thrilled read to Sarah Wise’s Inconvenient People, an enthralling study of those who fell foul of Victorian mad-doctors and greedy relatives.” —Philip Hoare, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year 2012<

Praise for the UK edition of Inconvenient People

“I enjoyed Inconvenient People…it is an illuminating look at an area of social history that inspired Wilkie Collins among others.” —Sebastian Faulks, Telegraph, Christmas 2012 Books of the Year

“Wise is a terrific researcher and storyteller. Here she has woven a series of case studies into a fascinating history of insanity in the 19th century.” —Kate Summerscale, Guardian, Books of the Year 2012

“I thrilled read to Sarah Wise’s Inconvenient People, an enthralling study of those who fell foul of Victorian mad-doctors and greedy relatives.” —Philip Hoare, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year 2012

Praise for The Italian Boy

Wise lights up a very dark chapter of London’s history…She has a Dickensian sense of London’s back alleys and dim corridors, and her meticulous survey of London’s eastern slums, where the resurrection men plied their trade, abounds in detail…Her achievement allows us to grasp some of the terrible secrets those mysteries concealed.”—The Boston Globe

“Wise’s immaculately researched and artfully constructed narrative shows how a band of bodysnatchers went from taking dead bodies to making them…The Italian Boy carves out its own niche in the darkness and, like any good mystery, leaves more mysteries trailing in its wake.” —Washington Post

“A highly atmospheric account of corpse trafficking and killing in early 19th-century London…Wise’s stately, richly descriptive narrative… evokes tumultuous 1830s London…A fine historical and social reconstruction of a vile crime.” —Kirkus

About the Author

Craig Nova is the award-winning author of twelve novels and one autobiography. His writing has appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, and Men’s Journal, among others. He has received an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of the Arts and Letters and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2005 he was named Class of 1949 Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Praise

Praise for All the Dead Yale Men

“Nova’s career-defining 1982 novel The Good Son explored the relationship between a domineering, social-climbing father, Pop Mackinnon, and his loyal but restless son Chip, a World War II veteran who returns home to an arranged marriage. This equally impressive sequel follows Chip’s son Frank, now happily married and a Boston prosecutor, after his father’s death by stroke unleashes long-buried family secrets and resentments… Nova’s scenic evocation of Boston is spot-on, as is his emotional detailing of the fragile intricacies of family.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred and Boxed)

“’Long-awaited’ is an overused phrase in publishers’ promotional blurbs, but Nova’s follow-up to his acclaimed 1982 novelThe Good Son merits that description as much as any recent fiction, and it has been well worth the lengthy wait. Nova now brings forward more than one full generation his account of the Mackinnon family…[their] roots are in a richly described Delaware Valley, but this dark saga is also set in a seamy New England familiar to readers of George V. Higgins’ classic The Friends of Eddie Coyle or Geoffrey Wolff’s Providence. It is told with comparable verve, wit, horror, and beauty—even when vulgar, even repellent—and with images and set pieces that will haunt the reader long after they’ve put the book down. This gripping and intelligent chronicle of love, legacy, and betrayal (the title may suggest a genre mystery, which this surely isn’t) captures a complex clan entangled in a questionable moral universe. Nova’s Mackinnons, both here and in The Good Son, leave their edgy mark on the modern American literary landscape.” —Booklist (Starred)

“A great novel by one of our great novelists. A pleasure on every page.” —Dennis Lehane

Praise for The Constant Heart

“Superb in prose and its evocations of character and nature, The Constant Heart is a wonderful novel by a writer whose range continues to dazzle me. As a writer, I marveled at the pure scope of Nova’s gifts as a storyteller. As a reader, I simply enjoyed my ride through the emotional heart of this affecting novel.” —Oscar Hijuelos

“…An evocative family yarn…Nova has again produced expertly drawn characters and carefully measured, suspenseful prose with some surprises, all with undertones orbiting around Einstein’s cosmological constant theory of relativity.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred)

“[A] meditative, philosophical, and beautifully realized novel about the nature of embattled American manhood. Both Jake and his father are deeply sympathetic characters, and Nova celebrates perhaps most fundamentally here the compassionate and honorable way they treat the women in their lives…discussions of Einstein’s theory of relativity are interspersed throughout the novel, providing a fascinating thematic element related to the search for something constant in a world defined by change and instability. This is a novel of deep maturity and thoughtfulness.” —Library Journal

Praise for Craig Nova

“Nova is one of the best American novelists… [his] fiction has characters great, outward bravery and of heartbreaking inner need… [The Good Son] is not only Mr. Nova’s best novel; it is the richest and most expert novel in my recent reading by any writer now under 40.” —John Irving, The New York Times Book Review

“Nova is one of the most distinctive voices and visionaries in American fiction… (his) territory is all his own… he’s both audacious and authoritative…” —Ann Beattie

“Nova genuinely relishes what life has to offer…one of the finest novels of our time…” —William Boyd

“Marvelous writing…marvelous reading” —E.Annie Proulx

“…a long, lingering pleasure” —Tracy Kidder

“…savvy, accomplished, delightful” —Oscar Hijuelos

“Craig Nova is a fine writer, one of our best. If you haven’t read him, the loss is yours.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

“[Nova’s fiction] is so powerful, so alive, it is a wonder that turning its pages doesn’t somehow burn one’s hands.” —The New York Times

“An exquisitely delineated battle between father and son . . . The structure and language of this novel are almost without fault.” —John Irving, New York Times Book Review

“[A] spine-chilling journey . . . moves with breakneck speed. Written with clarity and vivid detail, the book is troubling but poignant-burrowing into that shadowy, universal fear of uncertainty and malice. The book haunts, lingering in the mind long after the last page.” —Baltimore Sun

“Dynamite . . . Like Graham Greene or Albert Camus.” —Denver Post

“Made me hold my breath. It’s so intense, it blew me away. Sentence by sentence, the book is just fabulous.” —Ann Beattie

“Nova executes like a chess master, all the while ratcheting up the tension and calling into question any sense of security, order, or reason. Like the best of noir, Nova’s novels, serpentine in their structure, speed, and toxic bite, remind us that while dark forces are always present, we must embrace love.” —Booklist 

“One of the country’s most gifted novelists.” —Chicago Tribune

About the Author

Janet Frame (1924–2004) was one of New Zealand’s most distinguished writers. She is best known for An Angel at My Table, which the Sunday Times of London called “one of the great autobiographies written in the twentieth century,” and inspired Jane Campion’s internationally acclaimed film. Throughout her long career, Frame received a wide range of awards, including every literary prize for which she was eligible in New Zealand, honorary membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Literature.

Praise

Praise for Between My Father and the King

“This new collection of 28 short stories that span [Frame’s] career (many of which have never been published) showcases her extraordinary gifts as an imaginative storyteller with a singular viewpoint. . .These stories—with themes of despair, disappointment, and wonder, underscored by Frame’s melancholy and vivid turns of phrase—are beautifully rendered.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A powerful collection.” —Kirkus

Praise for Janet Frame

“Like every writer worth remembering, Frame exploits—or creates on the page, to be absolutely puristic about it—her peculiar sensibility, her private window into the universe.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Janet Frame proves the master of nostalgia, beauty, and loss. Frame is, and will remain, divine.” —Alice Sebold

“Quite simply, she’s a stunning writer.” —Dominion Post (New Zealand)

“A poetic soul has rarely come better disguised.” —Jane Campion

“One of the most sensitve, forthright, and adventurous illuminators of human consciousness.” —Booklist

About the Author

Linda Daly is a former teacher, working for a decade with some of L.A.’s most challenging children, before starting a family of her own. Her philanthropic work began with development and fundraising at local nonprofit organizations, including a six-month consulting job at the International Medical Corps. She served as the environmental expert at the Los Angeles Times Magazine, where she also maintained the blog “Pretty in Green,” focusing on the lighter side of green issues. Linda has been a founding Board member of Vintage Hollywood, which raises funds to help children in Southern California; and Global Hunger Foundation, which seeks to alleviate hunger around the globe through small grants to women’s groups interested in sustainable farming. She has traveled to Eastern Chad to visit Darfuri refugee camps; to Rwanda to commemorate an anniversary of the genocide; and to the Kibera slum in Nairobi where she assisted women with AIDS. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. They have four dogs, a duck, a horse, and too many tomato plants.

Praise

Praise for The Last Pilgrimage

“This book is two stories, a child’s and a dying parent’s, and each of us has both of those stories in us too, whether we tell them in a book for the world to read or tell them for ourselves alone, around the family table, as our turn comes to care for the dying and then, eventually, to be among them.” —Patt Morrison, The Los Angeles Times

“The Last Pilgrimage is a gorgeous love story and spiritual travelogue wrapped in a wonderfully written, funny, and fantastic memoir. It is the best kind of biography; like life, reality bites and blossoms on every page. A vivid and loving portrait of Nancy Daly, painted by her daughter’s unflinching, touching, and warmly humorous reflections.” —Jamie Lee Curtis

“Philanthropist and environmental activist Daly writes about her spiritual search as she shared her mother’s courageous four-year battle with the ravages of pancreatic cancer… a convert to Judaism with a profound connection to nature, [she] writes movingly of her spiritual journey as she faced the need to establish an independent identity. A daughter’s tender tribute to a remarkable mother.” —Kirkus

“This is a beautiful book with an appropriate title, as sorrow over her mother’s cancer became the author’s conduit for her search for God. Linda Daly has mined the extraordinary depths of the love a daughter feels for her mother, and the sadness she feels at her passage from this world. A wonderful testament to the power of love.” —Marianne Williamson

“I am so glad Linda chose to write this story for two reasons. One, I think Linda is a very good writer —she writes with humor, sensitivity, insight, and depth. Two, because I believe that Linda’s account of Nancy Daly’s final days after her courageous battle with pancreatic cancer should be read. It is a story of love and strength; the importance of family and friends, and mostly about a woman who refused to see the bottle as half empty even when it was down to its last ounces.” —Carole Bayer Sager

“The Last Pilgrimage presents the age-old archetype of a child facing a parent’s death but with a unique voice and vision, namely the ability to mix the material with the metaphysical. I can’t think of a more contemporary mother/daughter tale — filled with questions of life and death, love and money, identity and family — or a more qualified author/daughter to write it.” —Annie Jacobsen, bestselling author of Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base. 

“There are so many elements to this journey — both geographical and metaphorical — it’s like a scavenger hunt for salvation. But at the core, this is a story about a family coming together instead of falling apart when the glue that held them together is about to die. It’s moving, compelling and, time and time again, downright funny.” —Nancie Clare, former editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine

“As Linda grew ever more determined to shining a light on the plight of others around the world, her mother, Nancy Daly, became more engaged in Linda’s journey with International Medical Corps’ efforts; their relationship deepened through this shared journey. Linda’s life-altering experiences in these difficult environments have translated into extraordinary action. Her influence among thought leaders and her powerful writing has proved immensely valuable to us as we carry out our lifesaving work delivering health care and training in nearly thirty countries.” —Nancy A. Aossey, President & CEO, International Medical Corps

“Daly offers a beautifully written and compelling account of a struggle with illness that showed all the fault lines in the mother-daughter relationship as they embarked on a roller coaster of treatments, setbacks, minor miracles, and the final descent.” —Booklist

About the Author

D. R. MacDonald was born in Cape Breton and grew up mostly in the United States. He has received two Pushcart Prizes, an Ingram Merrill Award, and an O. Henry Award for his short fiction. His first novel, Cape Breton Road, was called “a jewel of literary craftsmanship” by Scott Turow, a “book of heart-stopping beauty” by Alistair MacLeod, and became a national bestseller. His second novel, Lauchlin of the Bad Heart, was longlisted for the Giller Prize. MacDonald teaches at Stanford University and spends his summers in Nova Scotia.

Praise

Praise for The Ice Bridge

“The Ice Bridge is a breathtaking novel about the landscape of love and spirit and a particularly special place, a book of considerable intrigue and remarkable beauty.” —Scott Turow

“[The Ice Bridge] transcends clichés in its depiction of an isolated community contending with a magnificent and at times overwhelming natural landscape. It also grapples with the global socioeconomic forces undermining communities of all sizes with far more subtlety and insight than most urban fiction…in prose reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence, MacDonald captures the almost hopeless struggle to comprehend the consciousness of another person and another time.” —Quill & Quire

Praise for Lauchlin of the Bad Heart

“Easily one of the best novels published in Canada this year.” —Ottawa Citizen

“Exceptionally crafted and imagined, nearly perfect in execution, Lauchlin of the Bad Heart confirms D. R. MacDonald’s vast, generous talent.” —Charles Foran

“Beautifully written . . . a luxuriant novel.” —Winnipeg Free Press

“A first-rate book . . . A rich and enjoyable reading experience.” —The Globe and Mail

“A novel rich in layers of meaning . . . heavy with foreboding and suspense.” —The Literary Review of Canada

“Lauchlin is one of MacDonald’s most accomplished literary creations.” — Toronto Star

“Skillfully crafted . . . It takes only a few paragraphs to be captivated by the comfortable cadence of D. R. MacDonald’s storytelling.” —Quill & Quire

“A superb work . . . It brims with the landscape and weather, texture and colour, character and eccentricity and rhythm and cadence of Cape Breton. — Guelph Mercury

“Compelling in its beauty and set against a landscape that is depicted with exquisite care, this novel crackles with suspense and will transport the reader to the heights and depths of intimacy.” —Alistair MacLeod

“MacDonald lays bare a man’s heart as few writers can, with wry tolerance and bare-knuckled understanding, illuminating the twisted roots of ambition and promiscuous love in a way that will change how you see men forever. Prepare to fall head over heels for Lauchlin of the Bad Heart—and for D. R. MacDonald, too.” —Merilyn Simonds

Praise for Cape Breton Road

“This is a book of heart-stopping beauty. D. R. MacDonald is an exceptional writer.” —Alistair MacLeod

“The book is a jewel of literary craftsmanship, remarkable for both its gentle delineation of life in a lesser-known piece of the world and its patient rendering of the internal life of a troubled young man.” —Scott Turow, The Washington Post Book World

“Lovely…MacDonald knows this landscape inside and out, and his love of the place is palpable. Cape Breton itself is the novel’s North Star.” —The Boston Globe

“Remain[s] grounded in the everyday while indulging in stylistic richness” —San Francisco Chronicle

“MacDonald serves as…travel guide and tale-spinner with his fine first novel…. Cape Breton Road marks an auspicious debut for a talented writer.” —Pittsburg Post-Gazette

“A compelling coming-of-age story raw with the beauty and loneliness that MacDonald, a native of Cape Breton Island, captures brilliantly.” —The Newark Star-Ledger

“Wonderful…MacDonald loves language as much as he loves landscape, and both of them here are as vibrant and as compelling as the characters. There are sentences in this book that are as sinuous and rich as that road…running thick, clear and clean, as exhilarating and bracing as salt air. It’s gorgeous, muscular writing, with nothing sentimental about it. MacDonald’s language lifts the story of Innis Corbett, makes it shimmer. He’s got a great voice.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“The novel’s terse prose, rich character development and strong themes make it a natural for handselling.” —Publishers Weekly

“The harsh beauty of Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island forms the backdrop for this vivid…chronicle of rootlessness and sexual rivalry…. A thickly detailed, convincingly claustrophobic narrative, enlivened by precise, ominous descriptions of the Corbetts’ wintry environment…and dramatically effective crisp, pungent dialogue.” —Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Sarah Moss was educated at Oxford University and is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Warwick University. She is the author of two critically acclaimed novels: Cold Earth and Night Walking, which was selected for the Fiction Uncovered Award in 2011, and the co-author of Chocolate: A Global History. She spent 2009-10 as a visiting lecturer at the University of Iceland and now lives in west Cornwall.

Praise

Praise for Names for the Sea

“An infectious memoir from someone engagingly candid about her temporary homeland’s limitations—and her own.” —Kirkus

“Moss . . . captures the fierce beauty of the Arctic landscape, the
hardships of establishing family life as foreigners on a local salary in a nation suffering an economic collapse, and most interestingly, the paradoxes of the national character.” —Booklist

Praise for the UK edition of Names for the Sea

“It’s then that you realize this isn’t the usual hack piece about the foreigner’s pratfalls with no speaking da lingo etc. This is a work of humour, for sure, and I loved her puncturing of Icelanders tales of derring-do, the obsession with pride and shame. More than that, it’s a work of strange intelligence that jars like poetry…it has beauty enough to feel fictional.”—The Times UK 

“A wry, intimate and beautifully observed portrait of a culture both alien and familiar.”—Philip Marsden, author of The Levelling Sea

“Honest, funny, frank, and insightful…an enviable experience beautifully described.”—Gavin Francis, author of True North: Travels in Arctic Europe

“As exciting as reading a novel…absolutely crammed full of interesting experiences and awe-inspiring sights, both natural and man-made…a real treat.”—Adele Geras

“This tale perfectly evokes the country’s natural splendours, but it’s the colourful cast of friends and hangers-on that’s so touching.”—National Geographic Traveller

“In this absorbing account of her year in Reykjavik following the crash (and coinciding with the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull), she sheds light on the strangeness of the country for an outsider as well as on the Icelanders’ ongoing trauma.”—Emily Read, Spectator

“A beautifully written and acutely observed examination of being an útlendingur – a foreigner. A stranger in a strange land, Moss grapples with new foods, customs and landscapes that are both oddly familiar and wildly alien in this absorbing memoir.” —Carl Wilkins, Financial Times Life & Arts

“Names for the Sea is much more than a travel book; the reader experiences intimately the trials of settling in to a culture that is different in every way from the Moss family’s own. At times very funny, this delightful and appealing book is written in a crisp and insightful style. It is filled with descriptions of the northern landscape which capture it perfectly and loving portrayals of family and new friends.” —We Love This Book

“Names for the Sea is a memoir of her family’s first year in Iceland, a journey from southern England to the nether reaches of the North Pole, and it is quite a ride. It’s hilarious in its unexpectedness, more like a dispatch from Gulliver than A Year in Provence … This is a work of humour, for sure, and I loved her puncturing of Icelanders tales of derring-do, the obsession with pride and shame. More than that, it’s a work of strange intelligence that jars like poetry.” —Helen Rumbelow,The Times Saturday Review

“A fascinating and unusual book, a genuine news from nowhere, the gripping account of one person thinking and perceiving for herself.” —Joanna Kavenna, Literary Review

Praise for Cold Earth

“In stripped-down prose that never reveals too much, first-novelist Moss conjures an increasingly creepy atmosphere, the isolation and stark beauty of the Greenland coast, and the rigors of survival in a harsh environment.” —Booklist

“It is almost perfect . . . This is an unusually promising first novel.” —Times Literary Supplement (London)

“Few first novels are as topical as this . . . There is a lot to enjoy.” —Financial Times (London)

“Moss’s stark writing delivers stinging splashes of cold water. Every element is distilled for purity of purpose.” —The Times (London)

“A heart-tingling story.” —Metro (London)

“One of the most powerful and gripping debut novels I have ever read.” —Scarlett Thomas, author of The End of Mr. Y

“An astounding piece of imaginative fiction taking the reader to the ends of the earth.” —Bookseller (London)